Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum #23) by Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum has a pretty nifty job. She’s a bounty hunter who works for her cousin Vinnie Plum. Well, she does get into a lot of trouble and has nearly been killed quite a few times but who cares when she has Trenton, New Jersey’s hunky Detective Joe Morelli who she’s engaged to be engaged with to help sooth her nerves. And since she’s only engaged to be engaged to Joe there’s nothing wrong with spending some time with the mysterious, Latin, good looking, Ranger who helps get Stephanie out of some tight situations.

Another murder has happened in Trenton. Stephanie and her side-kick, ex ho, Lula, are in pursuit of Larry Virgil who skipped his bond hearing. They found him driving a stolen truck from Bogart Ice Cream. Larry runs out of the truck, steals Lula’s car and drives off to the local chop shop. Lula and Stephanie take the ice cream truck and drives after him. But a police car gets in their way and Lula stops the truck by smashing it into the police car. Don’t worry, the cops were safe and not even all that angry at Stephanie and Lula since the two women have a reputation of sorts in the Trenton police community.

The police and the two women open up the back of the ice cream truck expecting to find just ice cream but and a frozen man falls out of it too. The man is dead and covered in chocolate and nuts.

It so happens that the Bogart ice cream factory has been running into a lot of problems and hired Ranger for security. Ranger asks Stephanie to go undercover for him to scope the place out.

Even though Ranger, Stephanie, Lula, and Morelli are keeping their eyes on things more problems occur which leads the awesome foursome afraid that everyone working at Bogart might either be in danger or involved in illegal activities themselves.

Fans of the Stephanie Plum books will get a kick out of this 23rd installment. Look, nothing new goes on in “Turbo Twenty-Three.” Stephanie is still in love with Joe and Ranger, Lula is still her always hungry trusty side-kick, and Grandma Mazur is still one of the best characters ever.

In between finding out who froze the frozen Bogart Man Stephanie and Lula have other people to find who skipped their bail hearing and bring them to justice. Nothing new at all. But I keep reading these novels because they are fun and quite a few times cause me to laugh. The characters are great, I love that it’s set in New Jersey, and the books are super easy to get through.

To be honest, I am getting a wee bit tired of Stephanie trying to decide between Joe and Ranger and her jumping from one bed to another but I also think that many of author, Janet Evanovich’s, fan base like the soft porn aspect to the stories. I could do without it but it isn’t offensive so, what the heck.

My favorite scenes are with Stephanie’s family. Grandma Mazur a wonderful character; I think her dad, who doesn’t say much more than “Pass the potatoes” and growls a lot is a great characterization of a husband who knows his place in the family ladder is on the lowest rung and enjoys being there; and her long-suffering mom is constantly worried about Stephanie and the doings of Grandma Mazur, and concerned about what the rest of Trenton thinks of her family. Sounds like a typical family to me.

If you’re a regular to the series don’t miss “Turbo Twenty-Three.” If you want to start reading about Stephanie and the gang you should start with the first book to give yourself a chance to understand the dynamics of the characters.

Janet Evanovich has another winner here.